At the same time events occurred which showed strikingly the absurdity as well as the weakness of this policy of paying blackmail to pirates. The Bashaw of Tripoli, complaining that we had given more money to some of the Algerian ministers than we had to him, and also that we had presented Algiers with a frigate, declared war upon us, and cut down the flag-staff in front of the residence of the American consul. At the same time, and for the same reason, Morocco and Tunis began to grumble at the treatment which they had received. The fact was that, with nations as with individuals, when the payment of blackmail is once begun there is no end to it. The appearance, however, of our little squadron in the Mediterranean showed at once the superiority of a policy of force over one of cowardly submission. Morocco and Tunis immediately stopped their grumbling and came to terms with the United States, and this left us free to deal with Tripoli.

Commodore Dale had sailed before the declaration of war by Tripoli was known, and he was therefore hampered by his orders, which permitted him only to protect our commerce, and which forbade actual hostilities. Nevertheless, even under these limited orders, the Enterprise, of twelve guns, commanded by Lieutenant Sterrett, fought an action with the Tripolitan ship Tripoli, of fourteen guns. The engagement lasted three hours, when the Tripoli struck, having lost her mizzenmast, and with twenty of her crew killed and thirty wounded. Sterrett, having no orders to make captures, threw all the guns and ammunition of the Tripoli overboard, cut away her remaining masts, and left her with only one spar and a single sail to drift back to Tripoli, as a hint to the Bashaw of the new American policy.